


Water Never Forgets

by MossadHuntinDog



Series: The Family's Soul [5]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Boats and Ships, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:43:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1663490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MossadHuntinDog/pseuds/MossadHuntinDog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tenderly, lovingly, he helped the little girl sand the grain of the wood, images of his own precious Kelly, taken too soon from the world, flooding his mind. He pressed a kiss to her head, vowing that he would never allow Tim and Ziva to feel that pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Water Never Forgets

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: NCIS, sadly, is not mine.

A light flicked on in the basement.

Small footsteps rushed down the stairs, childish laughter trailing behind in their wake. Slowly, another pair of footsteps, older, bigger, who'd seen far too many years in their long lives, followed, stopping at the foot of the stairs. The owner of the footsteps watched as the child rushed to the bench and climbed on it. She continued to chatter, even as she reached for the colored pencils and paper Gibbs always kept in the corner of the counter, specifically for her.

He chuckled, tossing his coat on the stair railing, before going to the small fridge he kept down in the basement and pulling out a bottle of whiskey. He stopped, however, and with a glance at the child, put it away, opting instead for the apple juice he kept for just such occasions when the girl came over. Going to the counter, he emptied two mason jars of their nails and bolts and filled them halfway with juice, setting one in front of the child. "Thank you!" She cried, and Gibbs chuckled, returning the bottle to the fridge before joining her.

"What are you making?" He watched her color, intrigued by her design.

"A boat."

"Really?" She nodded, and he leaned close to study it. "How is it going to move through the water like that?" The girl stopped, turning to him. Then, she held out the pencil.

"Will you show me?" He took the pencil, lifting the girl onto his lap and taking her hand. Then, gently, he guided her movements over a fresh piece of paper, drawing out the dimensions of a small model boat. Once done, he created another one, before asking,

"What do you say we make these for Mommy and Daddy?" The girl nodded eagerly, grinning from ear to ear as he lifted her off his lap and got up, going to the small woodpile in the far corner of his basement- misshapen pieces and boards he kept for just such an occasion. She watched silently as Gibbs selected two pieces of wood, nice, thick square pieces of rough oak.

"Those are boats?" She asked, taking the one he handed her. Gibbs chuckled softly.

"They will be, when we're done with them."

Over the next hour, he taught her how to drill and chisel, and now, he helped her sand, gently placing her small fingers over the handheld sander and guiding her. The child lit up with each new task he gave her, but she enjoyed sanding the wood the most. "Like this?" Elizabeth asked, looking up at him. He nodded, meeting her gaze with a sad smile.

_"Like this, Daddy? Am I doing it right?"_

"You're doing fine, Lilibet." He replied, keeping careful watch as she worked the sander slowly back and forth. Silence fell for several minutes, before her voice broke the silence once again.

"Who is Kelly?" Gibbs started; he didn't even know the child had heard about his daughter. The girl turned to meet his gaze. "I heard Mommy and Daddy talk about her. Daddy said she's why you build boats, because of her. So if you build boats because of her, then she must have been real important. Mommy said you don't build boats for everyone, just important people. And Kelly must have been important, but I don't know who she is. Who is she?"

He met her gaze, unsure of how to explain to the child that his first wife and only daughter had died a long time ago. That they'd been killed by a car bomb, and that they'd taken Gibbs's will to live with them to the grave. Elizabeth watched him, her bright green eyes studying him, much like Kelly's used to. The child was so innocent, so trusting, and her parents, so in love with her- they'd been desperate to have a baby, especially after it'd been discovered that Ziva would never be able to conceive let alone _carry_ a baby of her own. So when Sarah got pregnant and gave the baby up- asking her brother and sister-in-law to adopt the baby- Tim and Ziva had seen it as their chance to have the family they longed for. The pain they'd suffered before Elizabeth came was pain neither wanted to feel again, as close as humanly possible to having your child ripped from your arms moments after birth.

Sarah was still in her daughter's life- though she _insisted_ that Ziva was Elizabeth's mother, and that all she did was give birth to her- and Elizabeth only vaguely knew of the origins of her birth- that her parents had struggled for years to have her, that for her mother, her birth had been a gift from God himself. She knew Sarah better as her college-age aunt who spoiled her rotten like any good aunt should, not as the woman who had brought her into the world, only to hand her over to Tim and Ziva, to raise her as theirs. Gibbs had promised the young college student that he wouldn't say a word to Elizabeth about her birth mother unless the girl asked and was ready to hear it.

"Are you okay?" He snapped out of his thoughts, looking down at the little girl in his lap. She watched him, all wide green eyes and dark curls. He nodded.

"Yeah, I'm okay, Lilibet." Then, he lifted her off his lap and set her on her feet, before getting up and taking the newly sanded boats over to the big table and set them down. "Come here, sweetheart." She rushed to him, and he scooped her up, sitting her on the edge, before taking the whittle and wrapping her small fingers around it. He sighed. "Kelly... Kelly was my daughter."

Elizabeth turned to him. "I didn't know you had a daughter. Where is she? Can I play with her?" She asked, quickly looking around. Gibbs chuckled softly, shaking his head.

"Unfortunately you can't, Lilibet. Kelly isn't here. She's not alive anymore."

"Oh. I'm sorry." The girl bit her lip. "What happened to her?"

"She died." He whispered, as he helped her work on the boat.

"Oh. How?" Gibbs sighed. She realized that she'd said something she shouldn't have, and returned her attention to the boat.

"She was killed, with her mother. Her own Mama saw something very bad, and she died because the bad people wanted to hurt her."

"Is that why you're alone? Why don't you find someone who makes you happy?" It was so innocent, and he gave her a soft smile.

"Not in the cards, Lilibet." He whispered. She nodded.

"Did you make them boats? Kelly and your wife?"

"Yeah, I did." He got up, going to the counter and pulling a couple photographs off the corkboard. He set them on the table beside her when he returned. She leaned close, reading it.

"Why are their names on the boats?" Gibbs sighed.

"Because of something my mother told me when I was a little older than you." He said, as he returned to helping her with the boats. Over the next couple hours, he told her stories about Kelly and Shannon, about growing up in Stillwater and about his father's general store, and about his mother. By the time he'd helped Elizabeth add the final coat of varnish to the last boat, the girl was enchanted, her green eyes staring at the two names on the backs of the small model boats she'd helped him make. 

"See, Lilibet, my mother told me once that water never forgets."

"What do you mean?" She turned to him, confused. He sighed.

"The reason we put names on the backs of boats is so they'll be immortal, even if they're dead."

"How can they be immortal if they're dead?" She whispered, turning back to the names.

"Because, anyone- anyone at all- with a boat named after them, will live forever. So your grandmas, will live forever, because their names are on these boats. And when you sail them on the lake, the water will see the names and remember them. My mother told me that when I wasn't much bigger than you." She giggled, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead, before lifting her off the table. Then, he set both boats gently in the box he'd grabbed and turned to her. "Come on, Lilibet, we'd better get you home."  

"Do you think Mommy and Daddy will like the boats?" She asked, following him upstairs. He chuckled.

"They'll love them." He whispered, turning back to turn off the light. In the back of his mind, he could hear Kelly's soft laughter, and felt a piece of his heart begin to heal.


End file.
